


waiting is the hardest part

by royalwisteria



Series: chances granted to the unhappy [1]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Canon, Gen, M/M, bagginshield more implied than direct, yes they are dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 18:54:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalwisteria/pseuds/royalwisteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dark of night it hits him hardest that this is real, that he has returned, that this is home, and that his adventure is over. It hits him harder than a real punch and he's nauseous, curling into a ball, bed far too large and comfortable, and cries himself to sleep. It's lessened when he wakes up, but that's because he's tucked all his memories into a far, far away corner of his mind, out of reach, pain lying right behind it. Bilbo pretends to live as though he is blissfully ignorant of what lies beyond the Shire's borders and as though he's never known loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting is the hardest part

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first Hobbit fic (I'm relatively new to this fandom) and my first time using ao3! I hope that I do the characters justice as I have just an inkling as to what I'm doing.

He waits until after his return, when dust has been wiped away and has re-settled, when he can sleep at ease without knowing another warm body is close by. He waits to remember everything, for a time when doing so won’t make him freeze in the middle of pouring a cup of tea, overfilling delicate china, for when tears won’t appear at thoughts of snow-capped mountains, glimmerings of gold, the stench of blood.  
  
Waiting, Bilbo discovers, is a tiring business.

—

  
He pretends he doesn’t all the time cry when he returns, but when he’s caught by the neighbors he can’t pretend anymore. He cries at night, curled into a ball under the covers on a suddenly unfamiliar bed; he cries when he eats alone, almost wanting to set out thirteen places for dwarves that he will never see again; he cries when he sits and stares out his window, aching to know if those who lived are okay, if they’re happy with their mountain.  
  
Bilbo pretends that he’s happy. He goes to the market, restocks his pantry after being depleted so long ago, hands smiles out like tissues, because _he is okay_. He’s okay.  
  
He’s okay.

—

  
Gandalf doesn’t come by for years, and that’s okay.  
  
Everything is okay.  
  
(He stops crying, doesn’t flinch when he cuts his finger and smells metal, and he only sees mountains in his dreams, far off in the distance.)  
  
Maybe he’s done waiting?  
  
No. Not likely.

—

  
When Gandalf does first visit, it surprises Bilbo from his stupor for a few days. The few days are enough, though, to remind him of why he was there in the first place. Seeing Gandalf’s face was like seeing an old friend, but he was an _old_ friend for a reason, because Bilbo will always remember the end of the Battle of the Five Armies with far too much clarity for any sense of the distance he needs from the memories.  
  
He says goodbye to Gandalf with relief, because he doesn’t want to remember hearing the news. He doesn’t want to remember visiting Thorin, the trembles in his voice he suppressed because this wasn’t _supposed to happen_ least of all to Thorin to _Thorin_ and then Fili and Kili and it was all just—  
  
It was all just too much.  
  
Even though he thought he was past this, he cries himself to sleep for a long time.  
  
(He’s actually not okay, but he will be. Time heals all wounds.)  
  
Gandalf might have been able to see all of this, but he says nothing. Nothing of the Lonely Mountain, nothing of the dwarves, least of all Thorin ( _not Thorin anyone but Thorin_ ) and so life continues, relentlessly, unforgivingly. Honestly.

—

  
He was never good with children, but Frodo is a blessing. All those years after returning, Bilbo never had something to focus on. He would putter around his house, sit at his desk for hours at a time, and stare outside his window. Verdant green fields, vividly colored flowers, greetings hardly audible from the distance.  
  
But now, with Frodo, he gets out of bed. He makes breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, everything. Frodo is quiet, stares at him with big eyes, and Bilbo knows that he should forget without even remembering. He knows that his past is past and that, sometimes, it should never be brought to the present and projected to the future.  
  
He should stop dreaming. Frodo needs him— and that’s exactly what _Bilbo_ needs.  
  
Maybe he would be happier if Thorin hadn’t needed him.

—

  
Frodo has no parents and Bilbo strives to learn how to be one. He is not allowed to be weak anymore. He is not allowed to cry himself to sleep, stare out his windows without seeing anything; there will be no more going hours without eating. He has a child in his house, his Bag End, on Bagshot, and the two of them are Bagginses. They have a reputation to uphold.  
  
And slowly, the smiles become a little realer, the scoldings he gives an apple-cheeked Frodo, coming home after mucking around with friends, are given with love. The table is nicely set for two and Bilbo doesn’t want to set the table for any more, because Frodo is his only family.  
  
A family would have been impossible if he had remained—  
  
If he had remained, he wouldn’t have this simple domesticity. If things hadn’t happened as they had. They had been lively and lovable, but Frodo is perfect. He reminds Bilbo of when he was a child and he hopes that Frodo will lead a happier life than he did. He wants to bestow this, as though the power to give happiness lies in the hands of the unhappy.  
  
And lonely. Although he has Frodo, he doesn’t quite replace love and Thorin has been dead for a long time.

—

  
When he leaves the Shire, home left behind, Bilbo remembers the last time he left. He had run down familiar lanes that turned into unfamiliar roads, trees whipping past, contract flapping in the wind. He had caught up with the group, calling loudly, and they had turned to stare at him. He remembers their eyes, Thorin turning to pin him down with a stare. He remembers the first few nights out on the plains, fear making sleep skitter far away, arriving at Rivendell.  
  
Rivendell is little different from how he remembers. The water falls a little different, rock smoothed even smoother, the faces of elves as smooth as ever before. He’s given a room, their faces kind, and Bilbo sits and stares out his window for a good long time.  
  
No longer a green produced from rich earth, the green he sees outside this new window is everlasting, a silvery sheen bestowed on every plant in the area. And he starts writing, because only now is the waiting to remember over with. Now, far too many years after returning, the wounds of loss aren’t too painful. Now he doesn’t cry when he writes of his friends the dwarves, though it takes him time to differentiate the story he wants to tell and the pieces that he’s leaving out.  
  
Like the color of Thorin’s eyes, rough, scarred hands, the torture of wanting to press his hands to his cheeks and tell him that it will be okay, everything will be okay, that gold is not everything, the mountain is not his only home. But there was no one else around to save them from themselves, and Bilbo was never quite up to the task of being a hero.  
  
So they fell.  
  
Bilbo left. He returned to the Shire, to hills, rich earth, smells of baked bread, fresh vegetables, the sort of life he would have been living without interruption. But he was changed and it had no longer been his life.  
  
He wishes Frodo all the happiness in the world. If possible, he would will it so that he would see no trouble, nothing wrong, only sweet dreams and pretty lasses.

—

  
Frodo is not happy and Bilbo isn’t happy either because he knew what it was for a brief moment. All of his wishes and longings were for naught in the end, but Frodo looks far more at peace than Bilbo is sure he does.  
  
They go to the Undying Lands together, and Bilbo remembers wishing that he could have one more chance. He’s not sure what for, exactly, but he knows he wants one.  
  
Just one more chance.  
  
May someone grant him this.

**Author's Note:**

> the good news is that this is not the end? no spoilers though! I have half an idea what I'm doing though, so I don't know how much I could spoil.


End file.
